Why I don't hate Snape & Ginny's name

[Tabouli]

No: HPFGUIDX 28896

Susanna:
> Poor Severus, you really, really don't like him, do you? So, I'd like to raise a trembling hand in his defence (can also use it to catch the tomatoes you'll throw at me).

Now 'ang on a minute here!  (says Tabouli, pushing aside her crate of fruit and vegetables, taking out an olive branch and a white flag and crooning reassuringly).  Are people taking my looong spiels on Snape to mean that I don't like Snape?  Clearly I have some (more) explaining to do before this perception spreads!

Now.  People may not remember this, but a few times I have mentioned that I separate what I like in a fictional character from what I like in a real-life person.  While I strongly suspect I wouldn't like Snape as a real-life person, Snape is fascinating, and I think he is one of the best fictional characters in the entire series!  I can't stand books where all the characters on the Good Side are pure and sweet and honourable and kind and noble and brave!  I applaud JKR tumultuously for daring to have a Good Guy who treats the hero and his friends badly and seems generally sour and bad-tempered.  If I disliked Snape as a character, I certainly wouldn't have bothered spending a couple of hours skimming through all four books to gather all the info I could on his school days to write a several page bio on him on this list.  OK, I don't go so far as to fancy the man, but he's definitely very **interesting**, and from me this is the highest of compliments (someone once went so far as to tell me that I picked my friends because of them being interesting, not because of them being nice, implying that many of my friends are the former and not the latter)!


Cindy:
> That said, (and forgive me if this was in the Snape essay, but I 
missed it) before we can attribute Snape's enmity toward Harry as 
Lily-related, we may have to explain away his nastiness toward 
Neville.  Did Snape also have a thing for Mrs. Longbottom.  :-) 
Anything to say on that, Tabouli?<

Ah.  Well.  I did actually briefly allude to this in my Snape essay - Snape *does* have a reason to dislike Neville: Neville is lousy at Potions to the point of being dangerous.  If you reread "The Potions Master" in PS/SS, you'll see that while Snape immediately launches an unprovoked attack on Harry, he doesn't start persecuting Neville until Neville melts a cauldron, leaks corrosive liquid all over the floor, eating holes in people's shoes, and gets boils all over himself.  Someone else discussed this not long ago, but IIRC the gist was that Snape is a perfectionist and incompetence really riles him.

Mirzam (now there's a good name!  What's its origin?):
>Yeah, I think it is Virginia, because Virginia name has roots in 
ancient mytology like so many name in HP. 

If I had to put my money anywhere, it would probably be on Virginia (virgin sacrifice, anyone?  Or did that sort of almost happen already in CoS?)  However, perhaps a clincher would be to keep an eye out for the initial Molly embroiders onto her Weasley jumper, and an ear out for what the teachers call her (though they really do seem sticklers for the boys addressed by surname and girls addressed by Miss Surname pattern, which is a pity for our purposes...)

Tabouli.


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